Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus which forms an image for foil transfer to enable foil stamping, an image formation managing apparatus, and a computer-readable recording medium storing a control program.
Description of the Related Art
Among image forming apparatuses which print an image on a transfer medium based on image data, there is known an apparatus which forms an image for foil transfer on a transfer medium, performs foil stamping on the transfer medium, and thereby, transfers a foil film on the transfer medium (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-255184). With this apparatus, a developing agent whose image has been formed is overlapped with a foil film sheet to be heated, and thereby, a foil film is fixed using the developing agent as an adhesive agent.
Now, for an image forming apparatus, processing of periodically performing an image quality correction for each output of a periodical number of pages or the similar processing is performed since image quality changes as a change with the elapse of time. In such an image quality correction, an image quality correction is performed, for example, by forming image patches on a plurality of sheets, reading the image patches by a reading unit such as a scanner, and deciding the state of image formation in accordance with the results of reading. In performing normal image formation, gradation, density unevenness, the maximum density, and positions and density displacements for each color are needed to be corrected.
The aforementioned image quality correction consumes the developing agent and it is desirable to reduce the consumption as much as possible. From such a point of view, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-161813 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Literature 1) discloses that it can be determined whether the correction is performed or not based on the rate of color pages or the resolution, or a user can be confirmed in whether the correction is skipped or not. Moreover, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-154218 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Literature 2) discloses that a monochrome correction is suppressed by including, separately for monochrome/color printing, thresholds of timing (printing time intervals) at which maximum density corrections for each color are performed.
When the image for foil stamping is formed for fixing the foil film at a foil stamping machine in a post-stage, image quality of the formed image does not affect quality of a final output article, and hence, necessity of the aforementioned corrections can be said to be low. Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2 merely give disclosures regarding performance of an adjustment that is not needed (or not frequently needed) in printing monochrome images, and according to these, switching between adjustments in outputting a normal image and in outputting an image for foil stamping cannot be performed.